David Horowitz op-ed: "Ideologues at the (professor's) lectern"

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Ideologues at the lectern
By David Horowitz, David Horowitz is publisher of www.frontpagemag.com and author of "The Professors," to be published later this month by Regnery.


STEPHEN ZELNICK is a political moderate who has taught in the English department at Temple University for 37 years. He has served as president of the faculty senate, as director of the university's writing programs and, more recently, was vice provost for undergraduate studies.

On Jan. 10, Zelnick and I testified as witnesses before a Pennsylvania House Committee on Academic Freedom, possibly the first such committee in the history of higher education in America.

Zelnick told the legislators that as director of two undergraduate programs, he had observed the classes of more than 100 teachers. He had "seen excellent, indifferent and miserable teaching," he said.

But in all those courses, he added, "I have rarely heard a kind word for the United States, for the riches of our marketplace, for the vast economic and creative opportunities made available for energetic and creative people (that is, for our students); for family life, for marriage, for love, or for religion."

I wasn't particularly surprised to hear that. The hearings in Pennsylvania are a direct outgrowth of the campaign I launched in September 2003 to persuade colleges and universities to adopt an "Academic Bill of Rights" to protect students from unprofessional political indoctrination by their professors. My bill said, for example, that students should be exposed to "the spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints" and not force-fed an orthodoxy on matters that are controversial....


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/editorials/la-op-horowitz22jan22,0,1196177.story?coll=la-home-sunday-opinion

[bunkerbuster1]

1. Why does this pig get an op-ed in the LA Times?

Good god, he has absolutely nothing new to say--it's always "Evil Liberal Academics are killing us! Wahhhh!"

[Igel]

22. The flip side was presented by somebody named

Saree Makdisi:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-makdisi22jan22,0,1211029.story?coll=la-news-comment

"'UCLA STUDENTS: Do you have a professor who just can't stop talking about President Bush, about the war in Iraq, about the Republican Party, or any other ideological issue that has nothing to do with the class subject matter? It doesn't matter whether this is a past class, or your class from this coming winter quarter. If you help expose the professor, we'll pay you for your work."

"This grotesque offer appeared last week on a new website taking aim at members of the UCLA faculty. The site, created by the Bruin Alumni Assn., a group founded by 2003 UCLA graduate Andrew Jones, offers differing bounties for class notes, handouts and illicit recordings of lectures ($100 for all three).

"A glance at the profiles of the "targeted professors," however, reveals that they have been singled out, in most cases, not for what goes on in their courses, but for the positions they have taken outside the classroom — and outside the university.

"I earned my own inaccurate and defamatory "profile," for example, not for what I have said in my classes on English poets such as Wordsworth and Blake — my academic specialty, which the website pointedly avoids mentioning — but rather for what I have written in newspapers about Middle Eastern politics. ..."

[havocmom]

2. Everybody's entitled to an opinion, so long as it's his!

That is not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind, Citizen Horror-witz!

[C_U_L8R]

3. Perhaps they should ponder the coincidence...

that anyone with a brain tends to be liberal.

Maybe that's true intelligent design.

[Jim__]

4. And, as an example of bias at the University of Colorado, Horowitz

can cite an example of one left-wing professor. So, in the marketplace of ideas he is looking for, there cannot be any leftwing professors.

BTW, the University of Colorado had numerous problems many of them dealing with a corrupt sports program and college money spent by the college administration for personal use. My recollection is that it was this combination of problems that forced President Hoffman's resignation.

[Marie26]

5. Good luck with that.

Almost all professors or academics tend to be liberal (excluding maybe business school). If conservatives have a problem with that, perhaps more should receive a Ph.D. It's almost a back-handed slap at conservatives to complain about this - "Look, all the intellectual leaders of our country are liberal!"

[izzybeans]

11. Unfortunately for them this whole learning thing

tends to transform politics for the person. Ignorance will no longer be bliss. Knowledge tends to do that to a person. It will be unavoidable, unless of course they want us to turn the classrooms into a perpetual pep rally for power.

[Marie26]

13. Part of me wonders

if that wasn't part of the reason for the cuts in student loans that the Republicans just passed. Less higher education = a more easily-controlled public, and more military recruits too. Yes, I am that cynical.

[izzybeans]

15. Cynical true, but even if that was not the intention it will be

the function of such cuts. Less lower-middle class and below students in school. A depleted work force and a no-nothing voting block for future boogey man campaigns. I wouldn't give them that much credit. Their foresight goes no further than the next moment. They only capitalize on the immediate environment. I suspect its the result of some narrow vision about public education.

On edit: perhaps it could be a victory for progressives in the long run, it may create an opening to shift from a loan based program to a grant based program in the future (provided debt becomes the issue we expect it will and the dems can regain control of the decision making apparatus of our government)

[ProfessorGAC]

6. I Want Both Of Them To Answer One Simple Question Set

Now, i know their heads will explode upon pondering this, but somehow that amuses me.

Here's the question set:
1) Do you believe the United States is the best country in the world?
2) Do you believe that it has held this status since World War II, at least?
3) Do you believe that liberal thought in academia has been extant, at least since the early 50's?
4) How could the United States still be the greatest country in the world if we have gone 55 years with liberal academics screwing things up?

They are now officially rupturing major arteries.
The Professor

[DeepModem Mom]

8. Excellent questions, Professor! nt

[Warren Stupidity]

7. He had a story in the Sunday Boston Globe too.

Complete with a picture of the aged radical.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/22/ideologies_clash_on_campus_conservatives_allege_liberal_bias/

He was identified as the founder of "Students for Academic Freedom" and the fact that he is clearly in his 60's and not a student as clearly demonstrated by the photo that went with the article was of course left unmentioned.

The campaign to purge the universities of unacceptable thinking is well underway.

[BurtWorm]

9. A "moderate?"

:eyes:

[ProfessorGAC]

10. If That Guy's A Moderate, Then I'm A Martian

He's a strident liberterian. I guess if you're not radical right, you're moderate in Horotwitz's limited world view.
The Professor

[izzybeans]

16. Any time a story begins with

"The following true story..." or "Bill, a political moderate" or "I used to be a liberal democrat but now I support the president" you know its bull shit.

[BurtWorm]

17. Any time the by-line says David Horowitz

you know it's bullshit.

[izzybeans]

18. Well that sort of goes without saying

:)

[Warren Stupidity]

19. Actually it has to be repeated ad nauseum

Same as 'Tweety is a lying republican shill' etc. etc. If we let their liars and lies go unchallenged, as tedious and boring as the task of exposing them over and over again is, they win.

[izzybeans]

21. True.

I suppose I took that for granted on the forum.

I do speak of this whenever it comes up in my life, given the state I live in has a vocal SAF movement.

[liberalitch]

12. On NPR the other day I heard that conservative alumni...

have hired students to record liberal professors' lectures......
I say.... bring it on!


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5162955

[Warren Stupidity]

20. Yes well what nobody in the whoremedia is asking

is where is the money coming from? Somebody ought to investigate these 'conservative alumni' and find out if a) they are alumni, b) it is their money, c) if they have any connections to the RNC.

But of course we don't really have an independent media, we have a bunch of whores and scaredy-cats.

[annabanana]

14. STEPHEN ZELNICK is a political moderate ?

Says who?